The 30–30 Meditation Challenge: A Retrospective

Building the Habit of Meditation Through a 30-Day Challenge

My bus didn’t show up one day on the way home from work. Not super atypical for OC Transpo transit, but it still had me steaming as I waited another 15 mins for the next one. Not that I had much to do at home or anything like that, but I still felt the weight of my anger and frustration dragging me down for the rest of the day.

In the fast-paced, hyperconnected world we live in, finding inner peace and mental clarity has been an important goal for us all (whether we consciously state it or not). Having to wait 15 minutes was no big deal for me (just more time to listen to my audiobook), but it was the intense emotional state I was in from a minor inconvenience of things not going exactly as I planned which made me realize I needed to change.

“Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.” — Wayne W. Dyer

Around the same time, I was taking part in a fun challenge with some friends from The Knowledge Society (a teen accelerator program) called Soft30, which was where for 30 days in August, we had a variety of requirements to complete and had to be accountable to each other.

Here were our requirements! Of the 45+ people who began the challenge, only 9 of us made it to the end.

While I also had some takeaways from the other habits I built throughout the month, the skill of meditation I built was most valuable to me (especially since I was struggling with it just before the challenge began).

The Platform

For my meditation habit, I used the Medito app, and specifically their “30-Day Mindfulness Challenge” as a starting point. Each day had a ~10- and ~20-minute video option, so usually I would split things up in the day and do one session in the morning and then another in the evening.

I had heard a lot about this app online and how it’s a lot more in-depth compared to other options, and it turned out even better than I expected. The biggest standout feature was the wide variety of meditation practices/techniques offered by the platform for free.

Outside of the specific challenge that I did, they have courses designed to help new beginners to meditation not only understand the benefits of developing this habit, but also a step-by-step guide of how to properly experience those benefits while meditating.

It’s sort of like having a personal trainer for your mind. Just like how gym trainers help you understand proper form/technique, give you encouragement/motivation, and help you focus on the task at hand. An app like this has meditation trainers to help us develop in the mental gym and clear the clutter in our minds.

In the challenge, the types of meditation practices evolved over the 30 days, but the main topics of meditation were:

• Mindfulness: This was the bulk of the practice (but more so at the beginning of the challenge) and focused generally on present-moment awareness and observing thoughts without judgement.
• Loving-Kindness: Around the halfway point of the challenge, it transitioned to this type of meditation which focuses on connecting us emotionally with ourselves/others.
• Body Scan: About two-thirds of the way in, the body scan meditations began, which are centred around focusing intently on the sensations felt in a certain part of the body, and then moving on to other parts.
• Breath Awareness: Throughout the 30 days, almost every day involved a few minutes of specific breath awareness meditation, which involves concentrating deeply on our breath to improve mindfulness/relaxation.

Getting Through the 30 Days

The typical “Motivation vs Discipline” life cycle when starting a new habit

Initially, the motivation I felt was very high (as it is with any new habit we want to build), so the first few days were no problem. That too, despite me not having built the habit of meditating for a few months until now.

Then, about a third of the way in right up until the last week, it felt like an absolute pain to carve out 30 minutes in my day to build this habit. Part of it is probably the issue of trying to go hard into it right away instead of building baby steps to get to this point. It’s like going from not exercising at all for months on end to then committing to doing intense exercise 30 minutes/day right away; it’s just not super sustainable.

So those days mainly involved procrastination right until the final hour of the day, and then leveraging Tim Urban’s “panic monster” theory to force myself to get it in before the end of the day. But by that point, the fatigue mixed with the panic made those sessions quite unfocused and unproductive. I guess the equivalent is going to the gym without being properly fed/hydrated and wearing a full suit instead of proper gym attire.

By that last week though, knowing that I had been starting to experience all the benefits I’d hoped to (greater focus on the present, less snap reactions to situations, less intense emotions, and more), I was able to get back into the groove of my schedule and use that time effectively.

Main Takeaways from the Challenge

• Don’t go so intensely into meditation too quickly. Habits are designed to make it so that your brain can essentially be on autopilot while doing it. If you’re forcing yourself to go so hard on it right out of the gate, it’s like stretching an elastic band where soon it’ll eventually just snap/return to its original position. I’m probably going to do it for about 10 mins/day moving forward.
• Focus mostly on just doing even 2 mins/day in the morning. It’s something for me now where it’s like a morning coffee. Starting the day out with that develops the right mindset for me for the rest of the day.
• Mental training is way more valuable than physical training. Not that one isn’t valuable or that they don’t complement each other (as good mental health = good physical health and vice-versa), but our mental state is what follows us throughout the day and is tested at all times. A mental state that is reactive and easily agitated will get frustrated when the bus shows up late or a friend takes a while to message back. A mind that is stoic and at peace will approach challenges calmly and not let their emotions have too much influence on their actions (be disciplined).

“Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.” — Buddha

Photo by Max on Unsplash

Milind

P.S. I stopped writing for a while and want to use this quick article as a way to get back into this habit that I also want to build. Expect more articles like these about my experiences moving forward. :)